Today in History… June 24 — Hopalong Cassidy is the 1st TV Western

Jun 24

Edited by Gerald Boerner

Commentary:

Growing up in the late 1940s and 50s, I looked forward to my Saturday morning pilgrimage to the movie theater in our little town. Besides the featured movie of the week, we looked forward to the cartoon and especially the short feature. Often times this included a western. But the real treat can when the feature was a Roy Roger, Gene Autry, and, especially, a Hopalong Cassidy movie. That week was a real treat!

When TV arrived in the late 1940s, we would crowd around our little 9” TV set to watch Howdy Doody and Cecil.. Later, with larger screens and more varied programming was available, we loved to watch the westerns that we had been listening to on radio for years. And one of my favorites was Hopalong Cassidy; even back then merchandizing was alive and well. I remember my brother and myself having a Hopalong Cassidy outfits and a Hopalong Cassidy bank account. As they say, “those were the days!”

As portrayed on the screen, the white-haired Bill "Hopalong" Cassidy was usually clad strikingly in black (including his hat, an exception to the longstanding western film stereotype that only villains wore black hats). He was reserved and well spoken, with a fine sense of fair play. He was often called upon to intercede when dishonest characters were taking advantage of honest citizens. "Hoppy" and his white horse, Topper, usually traveled through the west with two companions — one young and trouble-prone with a weakness for damsels in distress, the other comically awkward and outspoken.

It’s time now to jump into today’s exploration of the first western television series in 1947, The Hopalong Cassidy Show… GLB

These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2011 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved

[ 3765 Words ]

Quotations Related to WESTERNS:

“I am not a fan of westerns particularly.”
— Patrice Leconte

“I felt pretty comfortable with Westerns, apart from the fact I couldn’t ride.”
— Richard Widmark

“I never dreamed I would do Westerns.”
— Eli Wallach

“I did 10 years of comedies and 10 years of Westerns. I really like to stay away from car chases. I prefer the more intimate film. You have a much more direct association with the emotions.”
— Elmer Bernstein

“I made over forty Westerns. I used to lie awake nights trying to think up new ways of getting on and off a horse.”
— William Wyler

“I sort of got into Westerns… It was a sort of desperation move, really. I had several pictures that didn’t go very well, and I just realised that I would have to try something else.”
— James Stewart

“With Westerns you have the landscape is important, and it’s empty, and only you populate it. When you populate it, you can tell any kind story that Shakespeare told, you can tell in a Western.”
— Lawrence Kasdan

“I think you’re going to find out that westerns will be coming back. It’s Americana, it’s part of our history, the cowboy, the cattle drive, the sheriff, the fight for law, order and justice. Justice will always prevail as far as I’m concerned.”
— Clayton Moore

Media: Hopalong Cassidy becomes the First TV Western…

Hopalong Cassidy is a fictional cowboy hero created in 1904 by author Clarence E. Mulford who wrote a series of popular short stories and twenty-eight novels based on the character.

In Mulford’s early writings, the character appears as rude, dangerous, and rough-talking. Beginning in 1935, the character ‒ as played by movie actor William Boyd ‒ was transformed into a clean-cut, on-screen hero in a series of sixty-six immensely popular films, only a few of which relied on Mulford’s original story lines. Mulford would later rework and publish his earlier writings based on the character’s new polished on-screen persona.

Clarence E. Mulford (3 February 1883- 10 May 1956) was the author of Hopalong Cassidy, written in 1904. He wrote it in Fryeburg, Maine, United States, and the many stories and 28 novels were followed by radio, feature film, television, and comic book versions. Clarence was born in Streator, Illinois. He died of complications from surgery in Portland, Maine. He set aside much of his money from his book for local charities.

William Lawrence Boyd (June 5, 1895 – September 12, 1972) was an American film actor best known for portraying Hopalong Cassidy.

Hopalong Cassidy Transitions from Print Media to AV Media

Film History

As portrayed on the screen, the white-haired Bill "Hopalong" Cassidy was usually clad strikingly in black (including his hat, an exception to the longstanding western film stereotype that only villains wore black hats). He was reserved and well spoken, with a fine sense of fair play. He was often called upon to intercede when dishonest characters were taking advantage of honest citizens. "Hoppy" and his white horse, Topper, usually traveled through the west with two companions — one young and trouble-prone with a weakness for damsels in distress, the other comically awkward and outspoken.

The juvenile lead was successively played by James Ellison, Russell Hayden, George Reeves, and Rand Brooks. George Hayes originally played Cassidy’s grizzled sidekick, Windy Halliday. After Hayes left the series due to a salary dispute with producer Harry Sherman, he was replaced by comedian Britt Wood as Speedy McGinnis, and finally by veteran movie comedian Andy Clyde as California Carlson. Clyde, the most durable of the sidekicks, remained with the series until it ended. A few actors of future prominence appeared in Cassidy films, most notably Robert Mitchum, who appeared in seven of the films at the beginning of his career.

The sixty-six Hopalong Cassidy pictures were filmed not by movie studios, but by independent producers who released the films through the studios. Most of the "Hoppies", as the films were known, were distributed by Paramount Pictures to highly favorable returns, and were noted for their fast action and excellent outdoor photography (usually by Russell Harlan). Harry Sherman was anxious to make more ambitious movies and tried to cancel the Cassidy series, but popular demand forced Sherman to go back into production, this time for United Artists release. Sherman gave up the series once and for all in 1944, but star William Boyd wanted to keep it going. To do this, he gambled his entire future on Hopalong Cassidy, mortgaging virtually everything he owned to buy both the character rights from Mulford and the backlog of movies from Sherman.

In the first film, Hopalong Cassidy (then spelled "Hop-along") got his name after being shot in the leg.

Television and radio

Boyd resumed production himself in 1946, on lower budgets, and continued through 1948, when "B" westerns in general were being phased out. Boyd thought that Hopalong Cassidy might have a future in television, spent $350,000 to obtain the rights to his old films, and approached the fledgling NBC television network. The initial broadcasts were so successful that NBC could not wait for a television series to be produced, and simply re-edited the old feature films down to broadcast length. On June 24, 1949, Hopalong Cassidy became the first network Western television series.

The enormous success of the television series made Boyd a star. The Mutual Broadcasting System began broadcasting a radio version of Hopalong Cassidy, with Andy Clyde (later George McMichael on Walter Brennan’s ABC sitcom The Real McCoys) as the sidekick, in January 1950; at the end of September, the show moved to CBS Radio, where it ran into 1952. Hopalong Cassidy also appeared on the cover of national magazines, such as Look, Life, and Time. Boyd earned millions as Hopalong ($800,000 in 1950 alone), mostly from merchandise licensing and endorsement deals. In 1950, Hopalong Cassidy was featured on the first lunch box to bear an image, causing sales for Aladdin Industries to jump from 50,000 units to 600,000 units in just one year. In stores, more than 100 companies in 1950 manufactured $70 million of Hopalong Cassidy products, including children’s dinnerware, pillows, roller skates, soap, wristwatches, and jackknives. There was also a new demand for Hopalong Cassidy features in movie theaters, and Boyd licensed reissue distributor Film Classics to make new film prints and advertising accessories. Another 1950 enterprise saw the home-movie company Castle Films manufacturing condensed versions of the Paramount films for 16 mm and 8 mm projectors; they were sold through 1966. Also in January 1950 a syndicated comic strip began drawn by Dan Spiegel with scripts by Royal King Cole; the strip lasted until 1955.Boyd began work on a separate series of half-hour westerns made especially for television. Edgar Buchanan was the new sidekick, Red Connors (a character from the original stories and a few of the early films). The theme music for the television show was written by veteran songwriters Nacio Herb Brown (music) and L. Wolfe Gilbert (lyrics). The show ranked number 7 in the 1949 Nielsen ratings. The success of the show and tie-ins inspired several juvenile TV Westerns, including The Gene Autry Show and The Roy Rogers Show.

Boyd’s company devoted to Hopalong Cassidy, U.S. Television Office, is still active and has released many of the features to DVD, many of them in sparkling prints prepared by Film Classics.

William Boyd as Hopalong Cassidy

In 1935, he was offered the supporting role of Red Connors in the movie Hop-Along Cassidy, but asked to be considered for the title role and won it. The original Hopalong Cassidy character, written by Clarence E. Mulford for pulp fiction, was changed from a hard-drinking, rough-living wrangler to its eventual incarnation as a cowboy hero who did not smoke, drink or swear and who always let the bad guy start the fight. Although Boyd "never branded a cow or mended a fence, cannot bulldog a steer", and disliked Western music, he became indelibly associated with the Hopalong character and, like rival cowboy stars Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, gained lasting fame in the Western film genre. The Hopalong Cassidy series ended in 1947 after 66 films, with Boyd producing the last 12.

Anticipating television’s rise, Boyd spent $350,000 to purchase the rights to the Hopalong Cassidy character, books and films. In 1949, he released the films to television, where they became extremely popular and began the long-running genre of Westerns on television. Like Rogers and Autry, Boyd licensed much merchandise, including such products as Hopalong Cassidy watches, trash cans, cups, dishes, Topps trading cards, a comic strip, comic books, radio shows and cowboy outfits. The actor identified with his character, often dressing as a cowboy in public. Although Boyd’s portrayal of Hopalong made him very wealthy, he believed that it was his duty to help strengthen his "friends", the American youth. The actor refused to license his name for products he viewed as unsuitable or dangerous, and turned down personal appearances at which his "friends" would be charged admission.

Boyd appeared as Hopalong Cassidy on the cover of numerous national magazines, including the August 29, 1950 issue of Look and the November 27, 1950 issue of Time.

Boyd had a cameo as himself in Cecil B. DeMille’s 1952 circus epic, The Greatest Show on Earth. DeMille reportedly asked Boyd to take the role of Moses in his remake, The Ten Commandments, but Boyd felt his identification with the Cassidy character would make it impossible for audiences to accept him as Moses.

Louis L’Amour

Louis Dearborn L’Amour (March 22, 1908 – June 10, 1988) was an American author. His books consisted primarily of Western fiction novels (though he called his work ‘Frontier Stories’), however he also wrote historical fiction (The Walking Drum), science fiction (The Haunted Mesa), nonfiction (Frontier), as well as poetry and short-story collections. Many of his stories were made into movies. L’Amour’s books remain popular and most have gone through multiple printings. At the time of his death some of his 105 existing works were in print (89 novels, 14 short-story collections, and two full-length works of nonfiction) and he was considered "one of the world’s most popular writers”.

L’Amour continued as an itinerant worker, traveling the world as a merchant seaman until the start of World War II. During World War II, he served in the United States Army as a transport officer with the 3622 Transport Company. In the two years before L’Amour was shipped off to Europe, L’Amour wrote stories for Standard Magazine. After World War II, L’Amour continued to write stories for magazines; his first after being discharged in 1946 was Law of the Desert Born in Dime Western Magazine (April, 1946). L’Amour’s contact with Leo Margulies led to L’Amour agreeing to write many stories for the Western pulp magazines published by Standard Magazines, a substantial portion of which appeared under the name "Jim Mayo". The suggestion of L’Amour writing Hopalong Cassidy novels also was made by Margulies who planned on launching Hopalong Cassidy’s Western Magazine at a time when the William Boyd films and new television series were becoming popular with a new generation. L’Amour read the original Hopalong Cassidy novels, written by Clarence E. Mulford, and wrote his novels based on the original character under the name "Tex Burns". Only two issues of the Hopalong Cassidy Western Magazine were published, and the novels as written by L’Amour were extensively edited to meet Doubleday’s thoughts of how the character should be portrayed in print.

Television Westerns

Television Westerns are a sub-genre of the Western, a genre of film, fiction, drama, etc., in which stories are set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in the American Old West, Western Canada and Mexico during the period from about 1860 to the end of the so-called "Indian Wars."

When television became popular in the late 1940s and 1950s, TV westerns quickly became an audience favorite. The peak year for television westerns was 1959, with 26 such shows airing during prime-time. Traditional Westerns faded in popularity in the late 1960s, while new shows fused Western elements with other types of shows, such as family drama, mystery thrillers, and crime drama. In the 1990s and 2000s, hour-long westerns and slickly packaged made-for-TV movie westerns were introduced. As well, new elements were once again added to the Western formula, such as the Western-science fiction show Firefly, created by Joss Whedon in 2002.

1940s and 1950s

When the popularity of television exploded in the late 1940s and 1950s, westerns quickly became a staple of small-screen entertainment. The first, on June 24, 1949, was the Hopalong Cassidy show, at first edited from the 66 films made by William Boyd. Many B-movie Westerns were aired on TV as time fillers, while a number of long-running TV Westerns became classics in their own right. Notable TV Westerns include Gunsmoke, The Lone Ranger, The Rifleman, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Have Gun, Will Travel, Bonanza, The Virginian, Wagon Train, The Big Valley, Maverick, The High Chaparral , The Gene Autry Show, Sugarfoot, Cheyenne, and many others.

The peak year for television westerns was 1959, with 26 such shows airing during prime-time. In one week in March 1959, eight of the top ten shows were westerns. Increasing costs of production (a horse cost up to $100 a day) led to most action half hour series vanishing in the early 1960s to be replaced by hour long television shows, increasingly in color.

Examples

The Lone Ranger was an American long-running early radio and television show created by George W. Trendle and developed by writer Fran Striker. The titular character is a masked Texas Ranger in the American Old West, who gallops about righting injustices, usually with the aid of a clever and laconic Native American companion named Tonto, and his horse Silver.

The Roy Rogers Show was a black and white American television series that ran for six seasons from December 30, 1951 to June 9, 1957 on NBC, with a total of 100 episodes. The series starred Roy Rogers, Pat Brady, and Dale Evans. The show started airing in France on March 5, 1962. The series was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1955 for Best Western or Adventure Series

Rawhide was a television western series which aired on the American network CBS from 1959 to 1966. It starred Eric Fleming and launched the career of Clint Eastwood. Its premiere episode reached the top 20 in the Nielsen ratings. Rawhide was the fourth longest-running American TV western, beaten only by nine years of The Virginian and Wagon Train, 14 years of Bonanza, and 20 years of Gunsmoke. The typical Rawhide story involved drovers who would meet people on the trail and get drawn into solving whatever problem they presented or were confronting.

Late 1960s through 1980s

Traditional Westerns began to disappear from television in the late 1960s and early 1970s as color television became ubiquitous. 1968 was the last season any new traditional Westerns debuted on television; by 1969, after pressure from parental advocacy groups who claimed Westerns were too violent for television, all three of the major networks ceased airing new Western series. The two last traditional Westerns, Bonanza and Gunsmoke, ended their runs in 1973 and 1975 respectively. This may have been the result of an ongoing trend toward more urban-oriented programming that occurred in the early 1970s known as the "rural purge," though only one Western (NBC’s The Virginian) was canceled in the peak season of the purge in 1971. This period saw a revision of the western, with the incorporation of many new elements. The Wild Wild West, which ran from 1965 to 1969, combined Westerns with heavy use of steampunk and an espionage-thriller format in the spirit of the recently popularized James Bond franchise. McCloud, which premiered in 1970, was essentially a fusion of the sheriff-oriented western with the modern big-city crime drama. Hec Ramsey was a western who-dunnit mystery series. Little House on the Prairie was set on the frontier in the time period of the western, but was essentially a family drama. Kung Fu was in the tradition of the itinerant gunfighter westerns, but the main character was a Shaolin monk, the son of an American father and a Chinese mother, who fought only with his formidable martial art skill. The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams was a family adventure show about a gentle mountain man with an uncanny connection to wildlife who helps others who visit his wilderness refuge.

Little House on the Prairie was an American one-hour dramatic television program that aired on the NBC network from September 11, 1974 to March 21, 1983. During the 1982-83 television season, with the departure of Michael Landon, the series was broadcast with the new title Little House: A New Beginning. A miniseries called The Little House Years was aired in 1979.

The Young Riders premiered in the fall of 1989 and ran for 3 seasons. The show followed a group of riders for the fabled Pony Express which operated 1860-1861.

1990s and 2000s

The 1990s saw the networks getting into filming Western movies on their own. Like Louis L’Amour’s Conagher starring Sam Elliott and Katharine Ross, Tony Hillerman’s The Dark Wind, The Last Outlaw, The Jack Bull etc. A few new comedies like The Cisco Kid, The Cherokee Kid, and the gritty TV series Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years.

Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman was multi-Emmy Award winning western/dramatic television series in the United States, created by Beth Sullivan. It ran on CBS for six seasons, from January 1, 1993 to May 16, 1998.

Walker, Texas Ranger was a long-running western/crime drama series, set in the modern era, in the United States, that starred and later was produced by Chuck Norris. It ran on CBS for nine seasons, from April 21, 1993 to May 19, 2001. For most of their time on air, Dr. Quinn and Walker aired on the same Saturday night lineup.

Western TV shows from the 2000s included Louis L’Amour’s Crossfire Trail starring Tom Selleck, Monte Walsh, and Hillerman’s Coyote Waits, and A Thief of Time. DVDs offer a second life to TV series like Peacemakers, and HBO’s Deadwood. In 2002, a show called Firefly (created by Joss Whedon) mixed the Western genre with science fiction. Justified is a series on FX that debuted in 2010, about a Western-style vigilante U.S. Marshal based in modern rural Kentucky.

With the growth of cable television and direct broadcast satellites, reruns of Westerns have become more common. Upon its launch in 1996, TV Land carried a block of Westerns on Sundays; the network still airs Bonanza and the color episodes of Gunsmoke as of 2011. Encore Westerns, part of the Encore slate of premium channels, airs blocks of Western series in the morning and in the afternoon, while the channel airs Western films the rest of the day.

Please take time to further explore more about Hopalong Cassidy, William Boyd,
Louis_L’Amour, Clarence E. Mulford, NBC, and Westerns on Television by accessing
the Wikipedia articles referenced below. In most cases, the text in the body of this
post has been selectively excerpted from the articles; footnotes and hyperlinks
have been removed for readability…

References

Other Events on this Day:

In 1497…
John Cabot, exploring for England, becomes the first European since the Vikings to reach the North American mainland, probably in present-day Canada.

In 1784…
In Baltimore, 13-year-old Edward Warren makes the first balloon flight in America, going up in a tethered balloon built by Peter Carnes.

In 1896…
Harvard University grants educator Booker T. Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Institute, an honorary master of arts degree.

In 1901…
Nineteen-year-old Spanish artist Pablo Picasso’s paintings are exhibited for the first time in a gallery on the prestigious Rue Lafitte in Paris.

In 1911…
John McDermott becomes the first U.S.-born golfer to win the U.S. Open.

In 1944…
U.S. troops are engaged in the month-long Battle of Saipan in the Pacific.

In 1949…
Hopalong Cassidy, the first TV western, begins airing on NBC.

In 1997…
The U.S. Air Force releases an exhaustive report on the 1947 "Roswell Incident," attributing witnesses’ claims of UFO and alien sightings in the New Mexico desert 50 years earlier to high-altitude balloons and crash dummies.